Mattha Busby: Power, Pleasure, and the Psychedelic Movement's Reckoning

Psychedelic movement culture is undergoing a reckoning as Mattha Busby and Joe Moore reflect on the post Psychedelic Science 2025 shift toward sobering scrutiny. They discuss growing divisions between underground practitioners, activists, and biotech startups, emphasizing the need for vision, ethics, and accountability while hype levels cool. The conversation also covers ketamine overuse and dependence in social and parenting contexts, the future of psychedelic nightlife including harm reduction and mocktail bars, and how pleasure, intimacy, and human connection fit into psychedelic journeys. They address power dynamics and potential bad actors in spiritual experiences, questions of IP and ownership, and the role psychedelics might play in peacebuilding, along with gender and sexual fluidity emerging through psychedelic use.